Robin Quinn | Hitler’s Last Army

HITLER'S LAST ARMY

"Probably the best book on the subject in the last 20 years..."

About the book

Hitler’s Last Army – German POWs in Britain portrays the lives of the 400,000 German POWs in captivity in Britain between 1939 and 1948, from their capture to their release.

The book draws on exclusive face-to-face interviews as well as on British and German official archives. It reveals how the POWs played a vital part in Britain’s post-war survival while, at the same time, their prolonged detention sparked political uproar. Its central theme though, is the human story of trust, friendship and even romance which developed between the POWs and the local population.

On 16 January, Paula D. gave 'Hitler’s Last Army' a five-star review on Amazon!

“… a very well written book retelling people’s experiences of being a German POW during and after WWII. The various stories are cleverly interwoven with background information taking one back to a different time which most of us have no knowledge or experience of. Highly recommended for anyone who just likes reading about other people’s lives and experiences. Couldn’t put it down until I’d finished it – very unusual for me."

German soldiers, sailors and airmen had been conditioned to believe that they were invincible. 'Being taken prisoner was for the other side, not us,' as one man put it. But large numbers of Germans were captured by the Allies in North Africa and, later, in the wake of the D-day landings. The photo shows prisoners of war arriving at a British port in mid-1944
'We put our hands up – as high as they'll go – and walked toward the enemy very slowly,' says one German soldier who was captured the day after the invasion. 'The American soldiers were reasonably sensible but they wanted to pinch our watches and rings as souvenirs. They didn't treat us roughly at all. No pushing or kicking, they just wanted souvenirs.'
Some POWs quickly adapted to their new circumstances: in a letter to his family one wrote, 'Treatment and food are good. Urgently need my big English dictionary.'
[From Hitler's Last Army, chapters 1 and 3]

Great Escapes

Luftwaffe pilot Franz von Werra was shot down over south-east England in 1940 and taken prisoner. He escaped, smuggled himself on to a British airfield, and was actually sitting at the controls of an RAF Hurricane aircraft when he was recaptured just before flying back to Germany. Finally, he was sent to Canada, broke free again, and returned to Germany where he was decorated by Adolf Hitler himself. After the war, von Werra earned the title 'The one that got away' (after the book and subsequent film of his exploits). He is generally believed to be the only German combatant to make a "home run": but, as Hitler's Last Army reveals, von Werra was not the only German POW to achieve this, or even the first. That distinction goes to Walter Kurt Reich, pictured here being interviewed by an American journalist after escaping to the United States from Canada.
[From Hitler's Last Army, chapter 4]

Helping The Tommies

At one point, Britain had some 400,000 German prisoners of war within its shores. While the country suffered the after-effects of war, including a failing economy and an acute shortage of labour, the government used the Germans as a workforce – primarily in agriculture. Their labour was so desperately needed that some were not allowed to return to Germany until late 1948; and, as Hitler's Last Army describes, others voluntarily remained in Britain for the rest of their lives.
'Opinions as to whether "We ought to help the Tommies to win the war" were very varied, and long and violent discussions took place,' recalls one former prisoner. A few had no such reservations: 'To be quite honest, right at the beginning when I first had to go to work when the war was on, all I thought was "Let's go harvesting, let's help here, let's get it going, let's build it up." We just felt "Let's get on with it". I always worked hard. The English were our cousins. We're related.'
In the calamitous winter of 1947 the prisoners helped save Britain from economic collapse. A combined force of 7,000 men – British troops, Poles, and German prisoners – stood shoulder to shoulder clearing the deep snow drifts in northern England which had brought the region to a standstill.
[From Hitler's Last Army, chapter 6]

What Are You Doing With A German

Fraternisation between the German prisoners and British civilians was strictly forbidden at first. In Shropshire a POW was prosecuted for having relations with a girl from the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service – the women's branch of the military). A court heard that the German had been discovered sitting on his bed and that the girl was hiding beneath the bed under a blanket. The defending lawyer said the accused spoke good English and had the opportunity to meet his opposite number in the ATS. He had been a prisoner since 1944 and had been 'given encouragement by an attractive Irish girl.'
However, when the POWs left their camps to work on the land, and were later permitted to mix with the public, it was only natural that relationships would develop. 'It was difficult because some people looked down on us,' a woman explained in an interview for this book. 'There were two Fleet Air Arm stations, an RAF station, and an army barracks nearby: the usual comment was, "With all these Englishmen around, what are you doing with a German?" There's no real answer to that, is there? If there's an attraction there's an attraction'
The illustration features a note from German prisoners to a WLA (Women's Land Army) girl whom they saw daily as she cycled to work.
[From Hitler's Last Army, chapters 13 and 15]

Next Stop Germany

By 1946 some of the Germans had been prisoners for a long period – up to seven years, in some cases – with no immediate prospect of being allowed to return home. 'We wondered, "How long are we going to be here, how many years?"' a former POW reflects. 'The war had gone on and on and on, then when it was over we were never told when we would be repatriated – whether it would be in a year's time or two years.'
Finally, in September 1946, Britain began a programme under which at least 15,000 Germans would be returned to their own country every month. But some of the prisoners – particularly those who had lost their families in the war, and those whose homes were now in the eastern zone of Germany – preferred to remain in Britain. 'I had the chance of going back but the Russians occupied that part of Berlin where my home was,' one man states. 'I was talking to my employer's son, and he said, "You don't want to go back to Germany under the Russians, you stay here. You can have a job with me as long as you like." And I wondered what would happen if I went back to the Russian zone of Berlin, and anybody realised I'd been with the Waffen-SS in Russia.'
On learning about the Nazi concentration camps, one man made up his mind that he would not return to Germany. 'I felt ashamed to be German. I didn't want anything to do with them – I didn't want to go home. I couldn't go to the East and I knew nobody in West Germany. Mum kept writing, "Come home, come home," but I thought "Never!"'
[From Hitler's Last Army, chapters 8 and 19]

Find Out More About Your German POW Ancestory

If your father, grandfather, or great-grandfather was a German prisoner of war in Britain, what information can you find about him, and about his time as a POW? When I wrote Hitler's Last Army I had originally intended to include a chapter for readers who wanted to trace a German POW ancestor. In the event, there was not enough space to do so, but this website now gives me the opportunity to set out some basic research hints.
A National Archives guide guide on the subject of prisoners of war in British hands is an excellent starting point. The document contains sections on German and Italian POWs in the Second World War, including links to useful websites. It also lists sources available at the National Archives which, while they are unlikely to contain lists of named prisoners, can provide helpful background information on life in the camps both generally and at individual locations.
I'll be adding to this section quite substantially in the future, so if you don't see what you want this time, come back and have another look in the weeks and months ahead, or get in touch through the Contact section of this website.

Blog: Hitler’s Last Army

Traces of the Past – German prisoners in the UK February 6, 2018The words scratched on this roof tile are ‘Arbeit macht das Leben suess’ (work makes life sweet). A touch of irony perhaps? Or was the work a welcome relief from the monotony of a POW camp? (Picture credit: Brian Grint / Great Yarmouth Mercury)

A reader of Hitler’s Last Army has sent me details of an article which recently appeared in the Great Yarmouth Mercury. Builders renovating a house in the Norfolk village of Acle have found a Nazi swastika as well as slogans in German scratched on roof tiles. It’s believed that German prisoners of war may have been used as a labour force to renovate the building during – or just after – the Second World War. The building in question was the village telephone exchange at the time in question, and it’s entirely possible that POWs could have done work of this kind, especially on an official building such as this. To see the original article click HERE

Zoologist and film-maker Heinz Sielmann (1917 – 2006) was the German equivalent of Britain’s David Attenborough. His extraordinary life and accomplishments are celebrated in a documentary on the NDR TV network this evening at 19.15 British time (20.15 German time).

Sielmann served in the German army during WW2 and was taken prisoner by British forces immediately after the German surrender in May 1945. He spent a short time in a POW camp in Egypt before being brought to the UK.

As author of Hitler’s Last Army, I was invited to take part in the programme to speak about Britain’s treatment of German prisoners of war in the immediate post-war years. Evidently the British considered him to be a reliable person who could be trusted to play a role in a new, democratic Germany. He was repatriated relatively early to a country which at the time was still under Allied control, and this probably gave him a career advantage which served him well a few years later in the new West Germany.

I’ve just caught up – a little belatedly – with an excellent programme on the Yesterday channel – a two-part series called After Hitler. I was impressed by the exceptionally good script, the well-chosen archive footage and the effective narration.

Among many important topics discussed, the programme reminds us that at the end of WW2 almost 11 million German servicemen finished up as POWs. A British major, we are told, wrote of the astonishing absence in Germany of men between 17 and 40. It had become “a land of women, children and old folk”.

As many as 400,000 of the prisoners were held captive in Britain, and their experiences form the nucleus of my book, Hitler’s Last Army.

Back in September The Times published the obituary of Eduard Luedtke, who had just died at the age of 91. The piece was headed ‘Last of the German prisoners of war who worked on English farms during the war and then settled here in peacetime’ (see my blog post of 1 November). But in fact he was only one of the last.

When the obituary appeared, ex-POW Theo Dengel contacted The Times to let them know that he was still alive and kicking —“or just about”. Elsewhere a woman anxiously called her grandfather – another former prisoner of war – to make sure he was OK.

Accordingly, a piece appeared in yesterday’s Times (page 90), as part of the paper’s Armistice coverage. Written by journalist Nigel Farndale, it mentions several of the surviving German ex-prisoners, while providing an excellent account of the 400,000 German POWs who were in Britain between 1939 and 1948. Nigel used my book, Hitler’s Last Army, as a source of information for the feature and kindly acknowledged this in his piece. Online version here.

The BBC Two drama, Close to the Enemy tells the story of a German scientist just after WW2 who is brought to Britain to help with the development of the jet engine.

The series is based on actual events. The Times of 7 May 1946 reported:

German scientists, many of whom are leading aeronautical authorities, are coming to Britain to cooperate with British scientists in hastening the development of aero-dynamics, to solve the problems created by the jet engine … When Britain captured the air speed record of 606 m.p.h., jet engines had to be held back. They could easily have gone on at a greater speed if the development in aero-dynamics and in the structure of aeroplanes had kept pace with the progress of the jet engine. Since then the jet engine had forged ahead again and its development was going on by leaps and bounds …

… The scientists, all of whom are non-Nazis, will work at Farnborough, Hants, where they will live in a special hostel and will be waited on by German prisoners of war. They have been working in German research stations and will be paid the same salaries as they received there.

… In the disarmament of Germany … it was decided that this vital realm of research should not be left intact in Germany … America, Russia, and Britain had now agreed that so many of these scientists should go to each of the three countries to cooperate with their own scientists. About 25 would be coming to this country.

In Hitler’s Last Army I describe many of the other occupations in which German prisoners of war were engaged in Britain, both during and after the war. Many people would be astonished to learn, for example, that trusted German POWs were given the task of compiling records of Nazis who were wanted for war crimes; other detainees had the job of keeping an up-to-date index of all POWs in British camps.